Is Green Spread? The Spillover Effect of Community Green Interaction on Related Green Purchase Behavior

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 May 27;19(11):6571. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19116571.

Abstract

In the era of digital economy and mobile internet, many platforms or brands have built various online or offline green communities to guide customers or fans to engage in green interactions. Obviously, community green interaction can enhance brand emotional value and enhance customer stickiness, but whether community green interaction can further have a spillover effect on related or other green purchase behaviors has become an important topic for the theoretical and practical departments. This paper selects the "Little Bear Fuel Consumption Community" as the research object. Based on the theoretical framework of "Green Interaction-Environmental Emotion-Related Green Purchasing Behavior", this paper examines the spillover effect and impact mechanism of community green interaction on consumers' related green purchasing behavior. This paper uses a structural equation model and bootstrapping method to test the causal relationship between variables. This study lasted for 6 months, and a total of 348 valid questionnaires were collected in this study. We used SPSS 25 and AMOS 24 for data analysis. The results showed that the two dimensions of community green interaction (community green information interaction and community green interpersonal interaction) have a positive spillover effect on consumers' related green purchase behavior; community green interaction can positively spill over to consumers' related green purchase behavior through the psychological path of environmental emotion; community green information interaction and community green interpersonal interaction have positive effects on consumers' positive and negative environmental emotions; positive and negative environmental emotions positively affect consumers' related green purchase behavior; and in the two paths of community green information interaction-related green purchase behavior and community green interpersonal interaction-related green purchase behavior, both positive environmental emotion and negative environmental emotion play a role of partial mediation; product involvement has a negative moderating effect on the path of "community green interaction-environmental emotion". This paper opens the "black box" of the diffusion mechanism of community green interaction and provides a new explanatory framework for the spillover effect of community green interaction on related green purchase behavior.

Keywords: community green interaction; environmental emotion; related green purchase behavior; social diffusion mechanism; spillover effect.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Consumer Behavior*
  • Emotions*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This study is supported by Major Project of The National Social Science Fund of China (20ZDA087).